Luc Longley ‘hot wife’ joke exposes sport’s stark reality

Luc Longley has had a career that most of the world would envy but the Aussie legend has revealed the part of the game that wasn’t so rosy.

Longley and MJ at the Chicago Bulls.

Aussie basketball legend Luc Longley did it all in his 10-year long NBA career.

He was the first Aussie to make the world’s top basketball league in the NBA, won three titles with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, represented Australia at three Olympics and had a long and storied career in the sport as a coach.

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Longley’s involvement in the 1998 championship was omitted from the Michael Jordan documentary series The Last Dance, something that he told the ABC’s Australian Story that he was “bummed about”.

“The self-deprecating Australian in me thinks it’s because I’m not that exciting. I was playing a huge role but it wasn’t one that was that sexy,” he said.

The director Jason Hehir said that it was for budgetary reasons.

It was something Jordan said he would have changed and the pair have since buried the hatchet over the snub.

But while having the best seat in the house for Jordan and playing a key role in the three-peat may look glamorous, Longley has revealed the dark side of the success as well.

The fiery 218cm tall Aussie giant told the Australian Athletes’ Alliance documentary Living The Dream that he wasn’t a naturally competitive person.

Longley’s parents both played basketball and he said that he was always around the stadium.

“I didn’t set out to be a great basketballer,” he admitted.

“I wasn’t naturally super competitive. I grew up in Fremantle and mum and dad were both fairly alternative hippies – not full hippies but definitely alternative. I went to a very alternative school and grew up in an artistic community, so it wasn’t even encouraged or glorified to be competitive.”

Luc Longley on Living the Dream.

But having started playing at “12 or 13”, Longley quickly moved through the grades and earned a full athletic scholarship to the University of New Mexico.

In 1991, the Minnesota Timberwolves picked him up as the seventh pick in NBA Draft.

He said he had days where he was really good, including one against Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson of the Houston Rockets, two of the best big men in the game, and dominated.

But he also had days where teams with less talent at centre, where Longley said "I couldn’t catch”.

He was asked “Did you have mental health challenges?”

It was then that Longley, in a response dripping with dry sarcasm, said: “No, don’t be silly, I was a professional athlete, I had a hot wife and lots of money. What kind of question is that?”

The reality was that he was struggling and was confused by his inconsistency.

“I looked at it from all kinds of angles and it never ever occurred to me that it could have been anything to do with my mental health,” he said.

“The doctor for the Minnesota Timberwolves pulled me aside after a month and had a chat to me and said ‘I think you have depression’ and to take these drugs. I remembered just being cross with him, like what are you trying to say mate? I’m good. Don’t say that to anybody else.

“I got to Chicago and same thing, there were days where I was a starter for sure and killing it and there were days where I could tell you the days, like ‘f*** Phil (legendary Bulls coach Jackson) don’t put me in, I can’t even manage myself’. I still hadn’t twigged. I just thought I needed to learn a different way to approach the game, or change the way I studied the game, or sleep 45 minutes instead of an hour fifteen, or put my left shoe on first — what is it.

“A couple of months into that and it was the same thing. Doctor pulled me aside and said ‘Luc I think you have a chemical depression and I think you should take these drugs’.

“I’m imagining that if that gets out, that’s the end of my career. My teammates would roast me, teams won’t want to employ a guy that’s mad, all that 80s macho stigma of not wanting to appear weak or in any way vulnerable. I was busy being invulnerable. I was guarding Shaq. I was trying to be a pillar of strength for my team. The last thing that anyone wanted to hear was that I was feeling fragile. I wasn’t even admitting it to myself.”

The NBA wasn’t easy for Longley.

After his retirement in 2001 Longley said the loss of identity and direction at the end of his career saw his first marriage break down as he wasn’t able to admit his depression issues.

It wasn’t until he was 35 or 36 that he began reckoning with his mental health.

Now 51, he said that he only told his children of the things he was grappling with “in the last 18-24 months”.

And he says he would be more mentally prepared to play in the NBA now.

“I can say in the last two to three years, since I moved down to the bush, I’ve been the best I’ve ever been,” he said. “I wish I could go back and play basketball now and see how it worked. I reckon I’d be much more consistent because I have a language with myself around how to manage myself. I think I’d be a much better basketballer today.”

Watch the full documentary here – featuring the likes of AFL veteran Phil Davis, cricket greats Shane Watson and Alex Blackwell, former international football Ljubo Milicevic and many more athletes.

Originally published as Luc Longley ‘hot wife’ joke exposes sport’s stark reality